Privacy policy

Who we are

Kala Stay is operated by Armik Property Group Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under number 14003011, with its registered office at 11 Pickwick Mews, London N18 1PD. We are the data controller for the personal data described here. You can reach us at contact@kalastay.co.uk.

What we collect

When you book directly with us, we collect your name, email address and, where you give it, a phone number; your arrival and departure dates; the number of guests; and anything you tell us in a message.

At online check-in, which the lead guest completes after payment, we collect the lead guest’s full name as it appears on their government issued photo ID, a copy of that ID, which you upload securely through our booking system, and a record that you accepted the house rules.

Payment details are entered directly with our payment provider. We never see or store your full card number.

If you join our guest list, we collect your first name, optional surname, email address, where on the website you signed up, and the date and time you confirmed your subscription.

When you simply read the site, we collect anonymous, aggregated page view counts. This site sets no cookies of its own. It stores only a timestamp in your browser to avoid repeatedly showing the guest-list prompt. Our analytics does not use cookies, does not follow you between sites, and does not identify you.

Why we hold it, and on what basis

• To perform our contract with you. Taking and managing a booking, handling online check-in, sending access details before arrival, and answering you during a stay.
• For our legitimate interests. Reviewing each online check-in before we release access, to protect the property, our guests and our neighbours and to prevent fraud; keeping records of who stayed and when; and understanding in aggregate how the site is used. We have weighed your rights in each case and hold only what the purpose needs.
• To meet legal obligations. Keeping accounting and tax records.
• With your consent. Sending guest list emails about offers and preferential rates. You can withdraw that consent at any time.

Our guest list

The guest list is optional and separate from booking and from online check-in. You join it only by entering your email in our website form, agreeing to receive offers, and clicking the confirmation link we email you. Booking a stay, directly or through a platform, does not add you to it, and we do not use booking or check-in details to add anyone to it.

If you join, we use your email address to send your 7% direct-booking code and occasional future offers and preferential rates. The code applies only to eligible direct bookings and is subject to the offer terms shown with it. We do not use your details for anything else or share them for anyone else’s marketing.

You can leave whenever you like. Every offer email tells you how to unsubscribe, or you can write to us at contact@kalastay.co.uk and we will remove you. Once you leave, we stop marketing to you and retain your email address only as a suppressed contact so that we can honour your choice not to be contacted.

Who else handles it

We use a small number of providers who process data on our instructions. They may not use it for their own purposes.

• Smoobu — our booking and property management system. It handles reservations, guest details and online check-in, including the ID you upload.
• Stripe — payment processing. Card details go to Stripe directly and are never held by us.
• Google — our ordinary business email.
• Resend — delivery of confirmation and guest-list emails, and storage of the guest-list contact and consent record.
• Vercel — website hosting and cookieless, aggregated analytics.

If you booked through Airbnb, Booking.com or another platform, that platform shares your booking details with us and operates under its own privacy policy. We use those details only for that booking. We do not add platform guests to our guest list, and we do not use platform messages to contact you about booking with us directly.

We do not sell personal data. We will disclose it where the law requires it, or where it is needed to protect the property, our guests or our neighbours.

Where it goes

Some of these providers operate outside the United Kingdom. Where data is transferred abroad it is protected by UK adequacy regulations or by standard contractual clauses, so it carries the same protection it has here.

How long we keep it

• Booking and financial records — six full financial years after the stay, which is what tax law requires.
• The copy of your ID from online check-in — only as long as we need it for your stay, and deleted after you leave, unless we need it for a dispute or a legal claim.
• Correspondence about a stay — two years after departure.
• Enquiries that do not become bookings — twelve months.
• Guest list sign-ups — until you leave the list, apart from the do-not-contact record described above.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us for a copy of the data we hold about you, ask us to correct it if it is wrong, ask us to delete it, ask us to restrict how we use it, object to processing we carry out under legitimate interests, ask for your data in a portable form, and withdraw your consent to guest list emails. Write to contact@kalastay.co.uk and we will respond within one month.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled something, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk, or on 0303 123 1113. We would rather you came to us first so we can put it right.

Security

The site runs over HTTPS. The ID you upload at online check-in is handled in our booking system, not by email, and access to it is limited to the people who run the property. Payment card data never reaches our systems. No system is perfectly secure, but we take the protection of your data seriously and will tell you and the regulator promptly if something goes wrong in a way that affects you.

Children

The site is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. Bookings must be made, and the guest list joined, by an adult.

Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. Material changes affecting an existing booking will be sent to you directly.